CH Precision I1 Universal integrated amplifier $38,000 Review

“I also felt that the I1 conveyed music’s full emotional impact. When I wrote in my notes that Shostakovich’s Quartet 15 “ends with a tragic epilogue in which each disruptive pluck and skirmish conveys unadulterated fright . . . [in] music that chills with its emotional honesty and despair,” I did so in full confidence that I was hearing all the music had to offer.

Nonetheless, it was my trusted reference tracks—whose every note, dynamic shift, and emotional nuance is now inscribed in my DNA—that truly told the tale. While that long tale began to unfold, I soon confirmed that adding an outboard clock—in my case, the dCS Scarlatti—invested the sound with considerably more depth and life. Music became more involving because images were more realistically defined and three-dimensional, and set farther back on a more resonant and convincing soundstage. With additional air around individual instruments as well, the sound seemed to expand more organically in acoustic space. Bass was also more profound.